theithipscene

This is the fourth letter. This is the seventeenth phone call.

Ryan sits up in his bed, yawning and stretching simultaneously. He glances at the clock. 11:45 Am, Why the fuck am I up this early? He asks himself, before slumping back down, his head plummeting into the soft, thick pillow. He lets his eyes drift shut but they open immediately when the sound of the front door knocking beckons him from is bed.

“Ugh, why?!” He cries out, pulling himself out of the bed and pulling on a t-shirt and adjusting his sweat pants. “Coming!” He calls, yawning and rubbing his morning-after eyes. “Fuck, I shouldn’t have drunk that much last night.” He scolds himself, holding his head and staggering to the door. Ryan has been going out every night this week, and almost every night for four weeks. It all started at his friend’s party, and he’s really paying for it now.

Grasping the key and turning it, he unlocks the door and pries the door open. “Jesus fucking Christ! Again?!” He shrieks, glaring at an envelope on the doorstep. He picks it up, examining it, already knowing exactly what will be in it, and walks back inside. Sliding a long finger under the flap, he opens it, tearing the paper. He reads the letter in his head as he did every time before.

You said you loved me. I still love you. I need to see you. Please don’t hang up when I call. I miss you, and I will keep sending you these letters until you notice me. I hope you remember me, I could never forget you.

I love you Ryan.

Xxx

Ryan crushes the paper in his hands and launches it at the trashcan. “Fuck off!” He screams at it, kicking the wall. He leans against the wall and slides down it, slumping on the floor, taking his head in his hands.

This person has been sending him these letters for three weeks. He has kept all of them; he’s kept count of the phone calls, they’re all stored on his cell phone in his call log. Thirteen letters, all saying the same thing, or near enough. Thirty-four phone calls, all beginning with “Ryan I need to see you.” And all ending within a few seconds.

He lets out a frustrated cry and hurls his cell phone across the room when it starts to ring. “No,” He cries. “Not again! Please not again!” The phone rings a little longer and eventually, begrudgingly, he crawls over to the phone, lying on the floor. Hands shaking, he picks up the phone. He takes a deep breath and hits the answer button.

“Ryan! I need to see you—“

“What the fuck do you want?!” He cries into the phone, standing up abruptly.

“What’s wrong, Ry?” the voice on the end of the line sounds hurt and worried.

“Stop ringing me. Stop sending me letters. I don’t know who you are, and I don’t want to. Get the fuck out of my life!” He yells, standing up and pacing.

“But...Ryan...I love you...”

Ryan screams in frustration. “You don’t even fucking know me! Who are you?!”

There is silence, and eventually there is a sigh. “You don’t remember...”

“No, I don’t,” Ryan growls, clenching a fist. “So get out of my life.” The line goes dead on the other end. Ryan flings his cell phone at the wall and it shatters, the back and battery flying out of it and the various pieces falling to the floor.

Ryan begins to retreat to his bed when the door knocks. Fuck, he thinks. He spins and approaches the door cautiously, taking a deep breath. He grabs the door handle and turns it slowly. He pulls the door open and holds his breath. A man is standing there, beaming and rocking back and forth from his heels to his toes and back again. His hands are behind his back, and there’s something a bit off about him.

“Who are you?” Ryan demands, examining the man before him.

“You don’t remember.” The man stops smiling and stands still.

Ryan cocks his head to the side and thinks, before it hits him. “Shit, you’re the one who’s been calling me and sending me those letters! Get the fuck away from me!” He tries to shut the door but the man runs forward, knocking Ryan onto the floor. “What the fuck?!” Ryan cries out, trying to get back up as the man stands over him.

“Ryan, please,” The man pleads. “Please don’t do this!”

“Don’t do what?! You just forced your way into my house!” Ryan yells at him, getting up and regaining composure.

The man places a hand on his shoulder. “I love you Ryan. Please remember me.” He looks like he is going to cry, and there is a catch in his throat as he speaks.

Ryan shakes his head. “I don’t remember who you are. How do we even know each other?”

The other man strokes Ryan’s cheek and sighs. “Remember, four weeks ago, you went to a party. I bought you a drink and we got to know each other a bit more. Then you said that you wanted to get to know me even more, and we went back here. We fucked, and you said that you loved me. I remember that night like it was yesterday.”

Ryan is taken back by this, and looks at the boy carefully, taking a step backwards. “Look, I don’t even know your name, but you remember everything. You know I was probably really drunk. Why can’t I remember anything from that night?”

The man before me looks down and bites his lip. “Because you lied. You don’t really love me. You never did.” He looks back up, revealing that he is actually crying now. “You’re a horrible, cruel liar. You’re breaking my heart Ryan, I love you so much but you don’t care about me.” He sobs and wipes his eyes.

On impulse, Ryan takes a step forward, putting his arms around the man’s neck. “I’m sorry. I really am. Can you at least tell me your name?”

The man sniffs, resting his head against Ryan’s shoulder. “My name’s Brendon.” Ryan strokes the other man’s hair with one hand, the other hand placed on his back, the thumb rubbing back and forth along his spine.

“Ok, Brendon. Tell me again what happened that night. I want to remember.”

Brendon raises his head, looking Ryan straight in the eye. “Really?”

“Of course. I really want to know.” Ryan smiles at Brendon. Brendon smiles, his tear-stained cheeks a bright shade of red, his hair a tousled mess.

Letting out a slight giggle, Brendon proceeds to explain. “Well, we were at your friend Spencer’s party.” Brendon blushes before managing to speak again. “Well...I think...that if there’s such thing as love at first sight, I felt it that night.” Brendon sighs like a love drunk schoolgirl, and closes his eyes before continuing. “I eventually managed to get up the courage to go and speak to you, and I used that old chat up line about how much a polar bear weighed before asking you if you wanted a drink. I remember when you laughed at how cheesy it was. When I heard your laugh, my heart skipped a beat.”

Ryan’s heart flutters as Brendon spills his memories. “Oh, Brendon, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“But that’s not all,” Brendon continues. “You accepted the drink, and we got talking. I remember how cute you sounded, slurring your words slightly from having just a few too many drinks.” Brendon strokes Ryan’s face. “We got talking more and you suggested that we came back to your place. Obviously I agreed, and you said that you wanted to have sex with me. It was perfect, you were incredible and I kept saying about how much I loved you, and eventually you said ‘I love you too’. I never forgot that. Not one second passed that I didn’t think of you after that.”

Ryan’s heart melts as Brendon tells him all of this. “I-I remember...I remember that...” Ryan realises, and takes Brendon’s face in his hands. “I remember all of it now. I remember that cheesy line about the polar bear breaking the ice. Oh Brendon! I remember!”

Tears of joy trickle down his cheeks and he looks Ryan right in the eye before their lips crush together, a frenzy of desperate kissing. Brendon kisses Ryan hard, like he’s hungry. And Ryan kisses back. Hard.

Ryan looks up at the ceiling, exhaling contently. “I love you, Brendon.”

Brendon rolls over to Ryan, pulling the sheets up to their chests, indulging in an Eskimo kiss. “I love you more.”

“Oh no you don’t.” Ryan smirks, rolling onto his side and weaving an arm around the other man’s torso, pulling him into him. The mattress creaks under them as they cuddle and playfully argue about who loves who more, like a couple in high school.

They lay there cuddling for a while, on the bed, in the room where time doesn’t matter, because at that moment all that mattered was for them to be together.